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Cleveland Browns Path To The Playoffs
Welcome to my weekly Cleveland Browns rooting guide looking at the best outcomes for the Cleveland Browns. With many of the top quarterbacks in the league not being selected in the first three picks, the Browns winning games isn't a bad thing, it shows the roster is loaded and able to continue improving with another offseason.What we will cover weekly in this article:- Current AFC Playoff Games-...
Game Preview #8: New Jersey Devils at Washington Capitals
The Devils are going to need their best to beat another Metropolitan Division opponent.
Let’s Hope The Next A’s GM and PBO Are Watching
The post-season is always a blend of exciting and frustrating. Exciting to see games with so much riding on every pitch and to see some of the best teams strut their talent. Frustrating that the A’s are not one of those teams and to reflect on the gap between how the best teams play and […]
Trump suspends new Russia sanctions following deal to purchase diesel, citing ‘national interests’
Passed by Congress with bipartisan support, the sanctions were intended to limit Russia’s revenue streams as the country continues its war against Ukraine.
Tech stocks erase $1 trillion of wealth as oil surges to $110 for the first time since May
The sharp drop in tech shares came as concerns resurfaced about ballooning AI debt, rising interest rates and high gas prices.
Democratic Senate candidates swamp GOP rivals in fundraising: From the Politics Desk
Plus, tensions boil over on the debate stage.
How laughter can help improve your mental health
They say laughter is the best medicine, but can adding a dose of humor to your life actually improve your mental well-being? According to the Journal of Psychiatric Research, the answer is yes.
73+ brands dropped new products this month — these are the ones our editors already love from Away, Kindle and more
Amazon’s most itty-bitty e-reader is officially here, along with an automatic pour-over machine from Breville and a Nutrofol hair serum to get rid of split ends.
Cook Political Report moves 11 House races towards Democrats as Trump continues campaigning
The non-partisan Cook Political Report moves nearly a dozen races toward Democrats with less than three weeks before the election. NBC’s Monica Alba and Garrett Haake report on President Trump's campaign trip to Georgia and Cook Political Report’s Erin Covey joins to discuss the rating shifts.
Danaher, Nvidia Combine Lab Instrumentation and AI to Advance Autonomous Science
The partnership is part of broader efforts at Danaher to provide AI-powered solutions that help scientists make discoveries faster.
What Makes Your Cannabis Business Buyable Right Now?
It’s a fraught question for many operators: How attractive is my business to potential buyers in the current market? M&A experts offer 5 characteristics buyers are seeking for entrepreneurs considering or curious about their businesses’ potential in an exit. Plus, 5 ways to make your business more attractive to buyers.
Holy Cross Health Named Among America's Best Healthcare Employers and Florida's Top 100 Employers by Forbes - Florida Hospital News and Healthcare Report
Holy Cross Health caregivers and nursing team members gather to recognize a colleague’s dedication and service, reflecting the collaborative culture and commitment to exceptional patient care across the organization Recognitions […]
Augusta Health to Host Community Career Fair in Waynesboro on October 22 Careers & Connections event will offer job opportunities, same-day interviews, and career resources
FISHERSVILLE, VIRGINIA — Augusta Health invites everyone —from experienced professionals and career changers to students and those simply exploring what’s next —to discover career opportunities at Careers & Connections: More Than a Job Fair. The event takes place Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Best Western Plus, 109 Apple […]
Katie Zacharia is out as White House press secretary after just 5 days on the job
Zacharia had come under scrutiny after a shaky first news briefing and the revelation that she represented herself as a lawyer but did not pass her bar exam after law school.
Hometown’s Best: Vote for your favorite Southwest Virginia live music, entertainment, or sports venue finalist in 2026
The search is on for Southwest Virginia’s favorite live music, entertainment, or sports venue, and the finalists for this year’s Hometown’s Best have officially been announced.
Hometown’s Best: Vote for your favorite place to watch sports in Southwest Virginia
The search is on for Southwest Virginia’s favorite place to watch sports, and the finalists for this year’s Hometown’s Best have officially been announced.
God Help Me, I Actually Loved Street Fighter
Stupid, surreal, and a little sexy are how best I can describe yet another video game movie.
Hometown’s Best: Vote for your favorite Southwest Virginia pet care business finalist in 2026
The search is on for Southwest Virginia’s favorite locally owned pet care business, and the finalists for this year’s Hometown’s Best have officially been announced.
Cavaliers Star James Harden Ranked 11th-Best 'Creator' in NBA
James Harden is one of the best creators in the NBA.
The best Amazon deals this weekend: Score big brands like Yeti, Lego, Apple and more for up to 70% off
We found fabulous fall discounts on everything from kitchenware and vacuums to holiday gifts, headphones, skin care and more.
Best iPhone Duo cases now available for purchase 9to5Mac
Apple’s new iPhone Duo has arrived and if you managed to secure one (before next year), we have collection of...
Can AI solve our mental health access problem?
Last week I asked you what worries you most about AI in health. It was close, but your top answer was “AI giving bad health advice.” Last week’s poll results: You’re in good company. This concern was top of mind at a conference I joined at Stanford last week, where researchers, clinicians, and people who build AI systems spent a day debating trust and safety in health AI. Stepping back, I’m also hearing your emerging concerns about AI’s impact on our well-being generally. I see this as a matter of public health, and we’ll take it in pieces as we learn together. Today we’ll focus on AI chatbots used for therapy for mental health. Early this month, Governor Newsom vetoed Senate Bill 903, California’s most ambitious attempt to regulate AI use for mental health. It’s at the center of active debate, and raises the questions patients, family members, citizens, and voters will face as AI moves deeper into health care. Let’s work through it. What is “AI-based therapy”? It’s really two things: purpose-built mental health apps designed to deliver structured support, and general chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini that people increasingly use for emotional support—even if they weren’t built for it. Spoiler alert: I don’t know whether the shift toward AI therapy is good or bad. The evidence isn’t there yet. But I do know it’s already happening, and I have some ideas about how we can roll it out with safety in mind. The therapy dilemma, in a nutshell Mental health challenges are common, and strain health and well-being across populations. Therapy (interactive dialogue with a trained, empathetic practitioner) helps many people heal. The demand for licensed therapists far exceeds the supply in California, and AI-based therapy can narrow that gap. AI-based therapy remains novel, unproven, and not well tested. Right off the bat, we can see we’re dealing with trade-offs here. Since the main driver of demand for therapy from a robot is lack of access to therapy from a human, we’ll start there. It’s too hard to find and afford a human therapist California is short roughly 55,000 licensed, non-prescribing therapists and counselors, about 40% of what we need. Psychiatrists, who rely on talk therapy as a complement to prescribed medications, are even more scarce. Eight counties have none, and density ranges from 1.7 per 100,000 residents in San Benito County, to 68.1 in Marin County. My wife is a psychiatrist in Marin, and even here access is tight. If it’s hard in the best-supplied county, imagine rural Sierra County, or the San Joaquin Valley. In 2024, more than half of Californians who tried to make a mental health appointment struggled to find a provider who took their insurance, compared with 14% for physical health care. When Senate staff posed as “secret shopper” patients and called 120 mental health providers in Medicare Advantage networks, they landed an appointment less than once for every five tries. Insurers pay behavioral health clinicians about 22% less than medical and surgical clinicians for comparable office visits. On top of that, billing denials and prior authorizations hit hardest at the solo and small practices common in mental health. Psychiatrists opt out of Medicare at the highest rate of any specialty. In many places, a cash practice for therapy fills quickly with patients paying $250 or more an hour, with no insurance paperwork at all. Families who can pay cash find providers more easily. Those who rely on insurance, including Medi-Cal enrollees, older adults, rural residents, and non-English speakers, compete for what’s left. So we can’t pretend the human system works, and we can’t blame people for turning to AI for support when they’re in distress. AI is filling the gap It’s estimated that roughly a quarter of AI users use it for mental health support. If you have internet, it’s available 24/7, it’s cheap, and it speaks your language. Uninsured adults are about twice as likely as insured adults to do it (30% vs. 14%). It feels anonymous in ways that may enable people to ask things they’re unsure or embarrassed about. The largely hidden, personal use makes it hard to study whether it’s actually helping people with their mental health issues, but researchers are trying. Does AI therapy work? A 2026 analysis of nearly 40 randomized trials found chatbots showed a real but small reduction in depression symptoms. But most of these trials were compared to an alternative of no therapy, not a human therapist. So the benefit of AI therapy is probably real, but modest, and mostly untested against the alternative of human contact. We need more studies. Serious concerns OpenAI’s own estimate is that more than a million ChatGPT users each week show signs of suicidal planning or intent. These are high stakes encounters, and AI doesn’t always get it right. That’s partly because a chatbot can sound like a therapist, but it has no license, no duty of care, and it’s not clear who to hold accountable when it gets things wrong. AI is also designed to help users in whatever task they’re seeking to accomplish. People may feel like they’re getting therapy, but they’re mainly getting a convincing conversation. It’s easy for an AI companion to wander into gray areas, like playing along with “creative writing” that may be about the user’s own suicidal intent. Courts are driving safety conversations A wave of lawsuits have been filed on behalf of families claiming that chatbots pushed people they loved toward self-harm, including teens who died by suicide. The first settlements came this year. OpenAI is headquartered in San Francisco, and dozens of cases alleging that ChatGPT drove users to suicide or self-harm are now before a San Francisco judge. Character.ai has filed for bankruptcy after several states brought lawsuits accusing the chatbot of pushing dangerous content to kids. But the technology seems to be improving. Last month, an independent evaluation found that newer AI models “almost never endorse suicide.” That’s progress, but our societal appetite for even one preventable death is very low. So how do we move forward? Finding a middle ground Earlier this month the governor vetoed Senate Bill 903, a bill designed to place guardrails on the use of AI for therapy. The bill would have prohibited any AI-based platform from being advertised as psychotherapy, and would have required a licensed professional to review and approve each encounter where AI was used to support therapeutic decisions. Newsom called it overly broad, since even routine screening questions would have needed clinician sign-off. Knowing we’re already short on mental health providers, requiring human review of AI encounters may not relieve our access problems. Still, the answer isn’t no oversight. Here’s one feasible short term solution. Rather than reviewing each encounter, a licensed clinician can design the guardrails: what counts as a crisis, what triggers an immediate handoff to a human, and what gets sampled for audit each month. The AI runs inside that structure. Conversations get checked, failures get reported, and a real clinician owns the framework. Medicine already has models to learn from. The FDA process for rolling out newly approved medications is an example. After a product reaches patients, we keep watching for adverse events. Patient-facing AI needs the same “digital pharmacovigilance”: systematic tracking of harms, near misses, and the types of groups that get hurt and why. It’s also critical that users know that they can reach a human if they’re in crisis. Most chatbots now include messages like these: Bottom line The rush to use unproven AI tools for mental health support is mostly a workaround, a sign of a health system people can’t get into. We need better access to proven care from licensed clinicians. That takes reimbursement that makes accepting insurance viable, and a bigger workforce. But, built and tested well, AI could be part of the answer. It could be the 2 a.m. check-in when no one else is awake, or a way for patients to practice skills their therapist taught them. It could be the first step to get someone the right level of care, and take paperwork off clinicians’ plates so they spend more time with patients. None of this is simple. The SB 903 veto doesn’t end the debate, and the legislature will be back. In the meantime, those of us using these tools need to stay informed, ask hard questions, and hold the companies building them accountable. I’ll try to do my part, and we’ll keep learning together. Love,Matt P.S. If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health challenges, emotional distress, substance use problems, or just needs to talk, call or text 988- you’ll reach a real person— or chat at 988lifeline.org 24/7. Dr. Matt Willis is the author of Your Local Epidemiologist in California. A California native, he’s served as a primary care physician, CDC epidemiologist, and public health officer for Marin County, where he guided the pandemic response. He lives in Marin with his family and their dogs, Teddy and Ramona. Thank you Cynthia He, MD, PhD, and Parnika Saxena, MD, for their guidance in preparing this article. Cynthia works in an outpatient mental health clinic, treating patients who have Medi-Cal or, sometimes, no insurance. Parnika works in an inpatient psychiatric unit, treating patients with public or private insurance or self-pay ability. All opinions are their own and do not represent their employers.
Apple Pre-Orders Kick Off With First Discounts on HomeView and Apple TV 4K
Pre-orders are now live on Apple's newest devices, including the HomeView and Apple TV 4K, and Amazon has the first-ever discounts on these devices. We're also tracking great deals on MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and Apple Watch SE 3 in this week's best Apple deals. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Amazon. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.
Northwestern vs. Michigan State: 3 Best Bets for Week 7
Capitalize on vulnerable pass defenses and Aidan Chiles’ revenge narrative as these three expert picks target undervalued player props for a high-stakes Big Ten showdown in East Lansing.
Can States Still Protect Public Health? The Risk of a Climate Regulatory Vacuum - Petrie-Flom Center
On Oct. 5, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that has the potential to greatly impact state and local municipalities’ ability to fight widespread threats to public and environmental health.
Morocco health alert issued due to diphtheria: US Embassy
In the North African country of Morocco, the country’s Ministry of Health reported a small diphtheria outbreak with clusters in multiple regions in Morocco in late September. Moroccan health teams are tracing contacts and providing preventive treatment and vaccines. This has prompted the US Embassy to issue a health alert for U.S. citizens in Morocco. Diphtheria is a serious bacterial infection. It spreads primarily from person to person through coughs and sneezes (respiratory droplets). Most Americans were vaccinated as children and have received Td or TdaP boosters as adults. The risk to U.S. citizens in Morocco remains low. U.S. Citizens may contact their local doctors if they would like immunizations. Embassy officials advise citizens to watch out for the following symptoms: Sore throat or hoarse voice, mild fever, a thick gray or white coating in the throat or nose, swollen neck and trouble swallowing or breathing. If you or a family member has trouble breathing or swallowing, please contact your local doctor. They also advise on the following actions concerning vaccines: Check your vaccination records and your family members’ records. Get a booster if you need one. Adults need a diphtheria booster (Td or Tdap) every 10 years. Make sure your children are up to date on their routine vaccines. Outbreak News Today is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe
BGR's Best Of Tech Awards 2026
BGR's Best of Tech Awards for 2026 feature dozens of standout releases like the MacBook Neo, Galaxy Z Fold 8, Sonos Play, Oura Ring 5, and Roborock Saros 20.
Voting time short for MAMA Awards. Modesto prepares to celebrate its best in music
This marks the event’s 27th year celebrating local music and entertainment.
Plague is stoppable. The next health threat may not be.
The word plague is scary. Centuries ago, the Black Death killed tens of millions of people and changed the course of history. Plague still kills people around the world, and the word still evokes catastrophe. New fears of plague surfaced on October 2, when a lab worker in Irkutsk, Russia, died of pneumonia. Reports suggested that she may have contracted plague through a laboratory exposure. Understandably, people were alarmed. On October 7, the World Health Organization called for the Russian Federation to be transparent about what it knew. WHO issued an update on October 10. Russian authorities told WHO that testing did not identify plague and that investigations found no laboratory release. WHO said confidence in its risk assessment remained limited and that further clinical, epidemiological, and laboratory information was needed. The cause of the woman’s illness remains unknown, and WHO says a laboratory-associated exposure cannot be excluded. As I explained in a recent interview, this incident is very unlikely to lead to a pandemic. Plague is still active, including in the U.S., which sees a handful of cases each year. But it is a disease we can prevent and treat. Plague doesn’t spread readily, and it responds to antibiotics. The standard response—isolate the patient, trace contacts, and administer antibiotics and monitor for symptoms among contacts for seven days—works. We have even planned for antibiotic-resistant plague. At CDC, we developed a playbook for antibiotic-resistant plague and ran exercises on how to find and stop it. CDC guidance anticipates engineered resistance and recommends two different classes of antibiotics if there’s reason to suspect it. There is no evidence that resistance—or even confirmed plague—is involved in this incident. We have thought through how to address plague, but we’re not ready for the next major health threat that emerges from a lab or from animal spillover to humans. What should concern people is how little stands between the world and the next pathogen to get loose. Since peak COVID, epidemic preparedness has fallen off the political agenda, but the risk is greater than ever. More labs handle dangerous pathogens with more ways to make those pathogens deadlier, and more people live and work in close contact with animals. There are actions we can take now: We need better lab safety in every country. The number of labs that work with dangerous pathogens has increased worldwide over two decades, but there’s no enforceable international standard and no inspection regime; the Biological Weapons Convention, fifty years on, still has no verification mechanism. Labs that study dangerous germs need strong safety systems, training, and oversight. We need to reduce spillover events. Three in four emerging human infections start in animals, and there’s a lot we can do to reduce spillover risk, but the world is doing very little of it. Live-animal markets are one place to act. For instance, closing live-bird markets helped control H7N9 influenza in China. Reducing opportunities for people to encounter infected animals can prevent infections before they become outbreaks. In The Formula for Better Health, which is now out in paperback along with the hardcover, Kindle, and audiobook versions, I argue that labs do too many risky experiments with too many dangerous pathogens in too many institutions, and that every experiment should first answer one basic question: Is the likely benefit greater than the risk? Spillover risk can also be reduced: In the book, I discuss how Brazil cut its deforestation rate by 70% from 2004 to 2012 while increasing agricultural production and reducing risky contact between people and forest animals. We need faster detection and response. Delay costs lives. Strong surveillance, good labs, and trained responders can turn a single case into a small cluster of infections instead of an epidemic. Resolve to Save Lives has worked for nearly a decade to help countries find and stop outbreaks faster. The 7-1-7 target, which Resolve to Save Lives developed with partners in Uganda and elsewhere, provides a clear standard: detect within 7 days, notify within 1 day and complete all essential early response actions within 7 days. In Uganda’s Kasese district, for example, a review of a measles outbreak using 7-1-7 identified shortages of accessible funds, fuel, and vehicles that delayed the response. District leaders established funds they could access quickly. When, a few months later, the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever appeared, the district detected it in three days, notified authorities in one, and mounted an effective response in two. Only one case was confirmed, and the patient survived. Because funds were available before the emergency, authorities were prepared and able to act. This kind of preparation can’t wait until the next crisis begins. Plague is an old disease we that know how to stop. The next threat may be harder to recognize, harder to treat, and easier to spread. Safer labs, less risk of spillover, and faster outbreak detection and response need sustained investment now, while we still have time to prevent the next emergency. Share
Dental hygienists stress importance of good oral health
Going to the dentist can cause anxiety for some. The best advice from a dental hygienist is to ask a lot of questions.
Patrick Mahomes: Is Kansas City Chiefs quarterback entering Tom Brady-like second half of Hall of Fame career?
Patrick Mahomes is returning from a torn ACL at the end of last season and looks back to his best; will Kansas City Chiefs put together second half of career reminiscent of Tom Brady; watch Chiefs vs Chargers live on Sky Sports on Sunday at 9.25pm
I've lived with Microsoft's $6,000 Surface Laptop Ultra, and it's so close to being the best MacBook Pro alternative you can buy
Microsoft's top of the line Windows 11 PC is finally here, and it's giving the MacBook Pro a real good run for its money.
This Is the No. 1 Risk Factor for Dementia That You Can Actually Prevent, According to a Geriatrician
In TODAY.com’s Expert Tip of the Day, a geriatrician reveals the top modifiable risk factor for dementia during mid-life, and how to address it.
A 24-team College Football Playoff is the death of college football's regular season
Say goodbye to the best regular season in sports.
Alaska Senate candidates clash over the Iran war, high prices and their times in office
Sen. Dan Sullivan attacked former Rep. Mary Peltola over reporting on high staff turnover and lobbying, while Peltola pointed to Sullivan’s increase in wealth while serving the public.
Commentary: Demystifying mental health inpatient stays
I am one of the 68 million Americans living with a mental illness and one of the over 10 million Americans who have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Living with these diseases and seeking treatment is highly stigmatized — and newly precarious under the policies of the current federal administration. The best way to break stigma […]
Auburn Faces Difficult Decision at Center After Cole Best's Struggles
Auburn football faces questions at center after Cole Best struggled against Tennessee. Ahead of facing No. 1 Georgia, Alex Golesh could evaluate Kail Ellis, Cole Skinner and Kenneth McManus as offensive line alternatives, though a starting change appears unlikely this week.
The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics
Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here's an offering of the best of this week's crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.
From 'Death of Robin Hood' to 'Sacrifice,' 10 movies to stream now
Love movies? Live for TV? USA TODAY's Watch Party newsletter has all the best recommendations, delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now and be one of the cool kids.
Colorado cannabis vape recall expands as health complaints rise
Three health and safety notices since Sept. 25 have pulled Craft THC vapes from more than 700 Colorado retailers.
Trump invokes executive privilege in Kennedy Center court fight
In a court filing, a lawyer for the White House said information about the president’s management of the center, including efforts to add his name to it, should be off limits.
5 movies like 'Knives Out' to scratch the funny murder mystery itch
What to watch next? We've got the best movie recommendations for Benoit Blanc fans.
Why AOC was in a deep-red part of Michigan: From the Politics Desk
Plus, the Republicans breaking with Trump on tariffs.
Oct. 15: Why Feds Are Investigating Rep. Ilhan Omar and Why Science Journalist Cleo Abram is Optimistic about AI
Just weeks before the midterm elections, federal agents searched the home of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., seizing her phone and issuing around a dozen subpoenas, two people familiar with the DOJ investigation told NBC News. NBC News senior justice reporter Ryan J. Reilly explains how the move fits into a broader trend of the DOJ going after President Trump’s perceived political enemies and why it’s so unusual to launch this kind of probe right before an election. Then, Cleo Abram is a video journalist and the host of the widely popular YouTube series “HUGE* if true” and “HUGE* conversations,” where she looks at the potential and the solutions offered by science and technology. Cleo talks about why she’s still a tech optimist in light of growing AI doomerism and how her interviews with industry leaders have shaped her perspective on security and regulation. Lastly, we wade into the internet’s favorite controversy this week: singer and TV personality Kelly Clarkson’s social media fight with a Brooklyn shop over a mechanical bird. NBC News entertainment correspondent Chloe Melas spills the tea on the back-and-forth – and why the bird is now going for $15 million.
Computer Science Program Ranks High For Quality And Affordability
CNU's programs in computer science, social work, and finance are ranked 3rd, 6th, and 9th best in Virginia, in Research.com’s 2027 rankings.
Colorado Springs named best city in nation for small businesses
A new report from Bluevine has named Colorado Springs as the most business friendly nation in the nation. it beat out Denver and several other metros.
6 books that speak to the enduring appeal of monsters
These books explore our enduring fascination with monsters in new and surprising ways, from fresh takes on vampire tales to a bestiary that spans time and worlds.
IP Saves the Day On Streaming
(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) Before we get started, I wanted to highlight a new idea I saw from Real Good AI, proposing a ratings system for AI use. (H/T to Anthony Kaufman’s article highlighting this.) It would look something like this: In general, I think that this is a solid, middle-ground solution that should appease both the pro-AI camp (who love AI) and the anti-AI camp (who wants to know if what they’re watching didn’t come from humans). Regardless of your feelings on AI/LLMs—I’ll never use it for my writing—transparency is often the best solution to many problems. In general, I think way more media outlets need to be using way more AI disclosures. My quick “Yes and...” to this idea: what about ads? In particular, I hate it when I see or hear ads that are obviously AI-generated, but a person or voice says, “I used this product”. AI doesn’t use products! Just today, I watched a YouTube ad where a “person” said they use some sort of rain wind chime...but that’s not a real person! They didn’t use this product. (Especially since the video of the wind chime itself also appeared to be AI-generated...) I believe most traditional advertising already has standards like this anyway.1 Okay, on to this week’s issue. We’re covering the week of 14-Sep, and then next issue, I’ll be fully caught up with Nielsen’s new release schedule. In the future, I plan to put out Streaming Ratings Reports each Monday after Nielsen’s Thursday releases. Overall, we had some big new shows this week, like Prime Video’s Reacher spinoff_, Neagley_, which is off to a big, big start, and Netflix’s latest in its Monster anthology, which is their largest opening since June and the second-largest since One Piece came out in March. All that, plus Slow Horses returns, the trio of returning shows (Lioness, Reacher and Ted Lasso) continue to dominate the top tens, Paramount+’s latest crime drama, a big whiff for a Netflix original film and a precipitous drop for Netflix film charts, all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more. Let’s dive right in! (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, JustWatch and Reelgood interest data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of September 14th to September 20th 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Television - IP For the TV Win Can I use the dirty word of entertainment journalism right now? IP. Shhh. Don’t tell anyone I said it. But IP works at the box office, and we’ve seen some evidence it works in TV too. Not as well, and not all the time—no absolutes here!—but often enough. And glancing at the Nielsen top ten…it worked this week! Take Prime Video, who has a monster hit in the crime drama Reacher. Would a spinoff work for that show? Yep! They binge-released Neagley, about a detective from the original Reacher series, and its eight episodes debuted to 29.6 million hours. Here’s how it stacks up to Reacher, one of Prime Video’s biggest shows: That’s great. Nearly as strong as Reacher’s opening! (Both shows started with eight, binge-released episodes, so this comparison is apples-to-apples.) Notably, Prime Video scheduled the debut of Neagley to overlap with Reacher’s most recent season, to help drive tune-in. Obviously, I love smart release strategies like that. And even though I wrote “obviously”, it’s not really that obvious, since streamers don’t often take advantage of natural overlaps like this_._2 Other data backs how well Neagley performed. It opened at second place on Samba TV for two weeks and got 51.7 million hours on Luminate. That’s the eleventh biggest opening on Luminate since May of 2024 and tied with Bridgerton’s third season opening. That’s a huge opening! Its IMDb is solid too, a 7.7 on 24K reviews. Netflix’s latest edition in the “Monster” series—which started with Jeffrey Dahmer and comes from Ryan Murphy—did well too, opening to 24.7 million hours. That’s the biggest opening for Netflix since I Will Find You in June, and second biggest since March. Unlike the Reacher series, this franchise is trending downward, though. The first Monster show—Dahmer - Monster—was giant. More than anything, I think this reflects that Netflix running out of extremely popular—if that’s the right word?—serial killers to feature. Still, the data says this is a very good opening. It made it to third place on Samba TV for two weeks. It also opened to 40.0 million hours on Luminate. That’s not quite as elite as Neagley, but still very, very strong. I’ll be honest: my priors coming into any given week are that IP works to help drive buzz for new shows, but TV shows need to stand on their own even more than movies, so they will succeed or fail based on their quality. But these two spinoffs definitely worked. Quick Notes on TV The top show, film or special this week? Football, again. Specifically, Prime Video’s season opener of Thursday Night Football. The games run long (three hours) but mainly a lot of people watch each game. That adds up to a lot of viewership. Paramount released the second season of MobLand on an unusual day for that service, a Friday! Often, they put their new shows out on a Sunday, as they did last year with a run of shows (Lioness, Tulsa King and Landman). MobLand didn’t make Nielsen in its first week, but on Samba TV it got to eighth and seventh place. Luminate had a smaller opening too, only 5.3 million hours. MobLand missed the Nielsen charts for its first eight weeks, so this season is off to a stronger start. (Bonus note: the first season streams on both Prime Video and The Roku Channel, but I only have it as Paramount+ on those charts.) I’ve mentioned a few times that foreign-language originals do lower numbers than English-language originals on Netflix most of the time. But I don’t usually emphasize what country those originals come from, and observationally, they tend to be from Western or Northern European countries, in general. So credit to Not a Stranger, a Turkish Netflix original, for breaking through on Luminate, getting to 7.9 million hours in its first full week on those charts. As I mentioned last issue, Crew Girl ended up making the Nielsen charts in its second week. That’s still a soft performance compared to many shows, but again this, one looks affordable. And if you’re curious, here’s how it stacks up to some other sports romance shows: We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… …about a new data source and how it drives streaming viewership… ...what reality show is struggling in its latest season…. ...what Netflix film bombed…. ...How Reacher, Ted Lasso, and Lioness are doing on the charts… ...what obscure sport put up great viewership numbers… …how far streaming films are falling… …all the flops, bombs and misses for the last week… …and more… ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support. If you want an idea of just how much content you’d get in a full issue, check out this older issue. Coming Soon! Next week, we’ve got a double issue, then we’ll be all caught up with Nielsen’s data. Yes! The goal is to have my report out on the Monday after I get Nielsen’s data. So next issue, I’m looking at East of Eden, The Great British Baking Show, a Willy Wonka game show (that people are upset uses AI, but viewers might not care), and a Cosby show spinoff reboot on Netflix, and Brothers on Apple TV (starring Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey). That’s about it for TV, but who’s going to win the streaming week, The Breadwinner or Backrooms on streaming? Answer: Toy Story 5. Plus Netflix has a Unabomber film and a new Tyler Perry film, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma tries to repeat The Substance’s run on MUBI, and Paramount+ has Jackass: Best and Last. Long term, Netflix is remaking Lonesome Dove. I love this choice, but man, there are a lot of westerns on TV right now. And they’re making Sega TV shows, including a Crazy Taxi TV show and Sonic show with an “edge”.
13News Now
13News Now (WVEC) is made up of storytellers, innovators, content creators, and idea generators. We stand for passion. Passion for our people, passion in our product, and above all- passion in our community. We value honesty, accuracy, and solutions. We serve as the local ABC affiliate for Hampton Roads. We strive for interaction with our audience and are constantly working on our presentation so that you have the best experience when consuming our products. Whether on air, online, or on the go- we are everywhere you go. Digitally we lead the market by more than a million actions over our nearest competitor. Join the conversation with us, help us tell the Stories of Now. About our parent company TEGNA- TEGNA Inc. (NYSE: TGNA) is an innovative media company that serves the greater good of our communities. With 46 television stations in 38 markets, TEGNA delivers relevant content and information to consumers across platforms.
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13News Now
13News Now (WVEC) is made up of storytellers, innovators, content creators, and idea generators. We stand for passion. Passion for our people, passion in our product, and above all- passion in our community. We value honesty, accuracy, and solutions. We serve as the local ABC affiliate for Hampton Roads. We strive for interaction with our audience and are constantly working on our presentation so that you have the best experience when consuming our products. Whether on air, online, or on the go- we are everywhere you go. Digitally we lead the market by more than a million actions over our nearest competitor. Join the conversation with us, help us tell the Stories of Now. About our parent company TEGNA- TEGNA Inc. (NYSE: TGNA) is an innovative media company that serves the greater good of our communities. With 46 television stations in 38 markets, TEGNA delivers relevant content and information to consumers across platforms.
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The Politics of Heat, Homes, and Lobster Boats.
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by First National Bank. MOUNT DESERT ISLAND REGION—The candidates’ forum focusing on House District 15 and incumbent Holly Eaton and Clifford Noyes last week spent a lot of time on the candidates’ thought of heating, communication with constituents, property taxes, education costs, and other issues. It also was a time for the community to ask their own questions and see two candidates up close and personal at the Southwest Harbor Fire Department firehouse. Jim Vallette organized the hour-long event, which was moderated by Carrie Jones of the Bar Harbor Story. Ken Rozsahegyi provided technical support for the congenial event. House District 15 serves Brooklin, Deer Isle, Eagle Island Township, Frenchboro, Isle au Haut, Marshall Island, Southwest Harbor, Stonington, Swan's Island, Tremont, and Vinalhaven. Jones advised as she began the question and answer part of the event, ”Treat everyone here like they are going to be the ones who might give you a ride in a rainstorm, pull your pet out of a burning building, or be the one grading your kids’ papers at school, okay?” She continued. “That’s it. Tonight isn’t meant to be a gotcha debate. The goal is to give people in the district a chance to get to know both candidates, hear what they care about, and understand what they’d actually try to accomplish in Augusta.” The questions and discussion throughout were kind. Eaton currently serves in the position. She’s a Democrat from Deer Isle, raised in a fishing family and has worked in nonprofits and volunteered for her school board. Noyes is unenrolled (politically) and from Southwest Harbor and currently a school board member, self employed as a mason. He focused on fiscal issues throughout the forum. Eventually, at Jones’ prompting, the candidates played “Rock, Paper, Scissors” for who would go first for their closing statements. Noyes used the opportunity to urge others to head to the ballot. “Whether you vote for me or Holly, it’s important that people vote,” Noyes said. He hoped the voter turnout in the district would be over 35 percent because that would mean people were truly engaged. Eaton stressed that she’s a Democrat, but in Augusta, her role isn’t about party. “I am a Democrat, but when I go to Augusta, I am there to represent the people of District 15. I want people to feel as though I’m accessible, that I’m responsive, and that I show up for the district,” Eaton said. Being there for others was vital, she explained. “When something comes before me in Augusta, I try to look at it through the lens of the people and the communities that I represent. How will this affect the people who live here? Does it make it easier or harder to raise a family here, to operate a small business, to work on the water, to afford a home, to keep our schools open, or provide the essential services our communities depend on?” Eaton said. Noyes spoke about fiscal responsibility and about the state being more responsive to communities and the ideas that come from them. “I feel that we desperately need to restore some fiscal sanity, a little bit. So when the legislature meets again,” Noyes said, “it could be critical for Maine residents that we don’t keep digging this hole that we’re in financially and keep raising our taxes so the struggling families struggle even more.” The two answered a series of questions from Jones, then answered questions from the audience and participants via Zoom. Jones asked what they heard the most from people about what was making their lives hard and what can the legislature in Augusta do it about those issues. Both spoke to concerns about heating oil costs. Noyes spoke to the three H’s: health, home, and heat. Eaton and Noyes spoke to the burdens of families with lower incomes, with Eaton mentioning LIHEAP (Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program). They both were in favor of free community college and trade programs. They both supported the working waterfront. Both said that data centers—such as the one proposed in Eastport, which is out of the district—should be a local decision, but neither were in favor of it. The working waterfront was supported by both. Eaton’s served on the Maine Marine Resource Committee in the legislature. She advocated a diversity of fishing resources and less of a reliance on lobstering. Shrimp, she hoped, would make a comeback. Noyes worried about out-of-state pressure on the lobstering industry, also spoke of shrimp harvesting timings, and said he supported the lobstering industry. QUICK NOTE Carrie Jones is, obviously, the co-founder of the Bar Harbor Story, which made us have a bit of a hard time putting out this story and thinking it through and how to present it. We ended up with this article. The debate in its entirety is below, many thanks to Ken and Jim for making it publicly available. UPCOMING AND PAST EVENTS The following events are or were organized by the League of Women Voters Downeast. DISTRICT 7 DISTRICT ATTORNEY DISTRICT 13 Thursday, Oct 15, 2026 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM Candidate Forum: House District 13 125 State St , Ellsworth Featuring candidates Michael Cunningham (D) and Russell White (R), moderated by Cyndi Wood, managing editor of the Ellsworth American. DEMOCRACY FORUM Friday, Oct 16, 2026 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM Democracy Forum — Election 2026: What’s on Your Ballot RECENT PRESS RELEASES AND BRIEFS To see all the press releases, click here. To see our news, click here. For the full archive, click here. All of these are on our dedicated website. 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Oct 14 ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/mainely-meats-pink-party-for-breast) [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/mainely-meats-pink-party-for-breast) [ ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/conners-emerson-school-announces) [ Conners Emerson School Announces Public Surplus Property Sale Oct 14 ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/conners-emerson-school-announces) [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/conners-emerson-school-announces) [ ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/planting-the-writers-garden) [ Planting the Writer’s Garden 12:15 AM ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/planting-the-writers-garden) [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/planting-the-writers-garden) [ ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/artist-maria-de-los-angeles-explores) [ Artist Maria de los Angeles explores migration and belonging in COA public lecture 12:19 AM ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/artist-maria-de-los-angeles-explores) [ Read full story ](https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/artist-maria-de-los-angeles-explores) HELP SUPPORT THE BAR HARBOR STORY When we started The Bar Harbor Story, we didn’t know if anyone would read it. But you showed up. You shared. You sent tips. Now—over 400,000 views every month later—it’s clear: people here care about their community and each other. We’ve kept everything free because news should never be out of reach, but every one of our stories takes time to write, and your support keeps The Bar Harbor Story going. If you value our work, please consider a paid subscription, a founding membership, or a sponsorship. It truly helps us cover one more meeting, tell one more story, shine one more light. Even $5 a month makes a difference. Click here to become a one-time supporter now. Thank you so much for being here. Founding member information can be found here. Have questions about sponsorships? Just send Shaun an email at sfarrar86@gmail.com, he’d love to hear from you. Subscribe Share Bar Harbor Story Share Leave a comment
Computational Models as Liminal Models in Neuroscience, a Cognitive Science Speaker Series Presentation | Events
Speaker: Danielle Williams, Ph.D. Title: Computational Models as Liminal Models in Neuroscience Short Bio: Danielle is a philosopher of mind and science whose research examines the role of computation in our theories and explanations of the mind and brain. Her work brings together philosophy of mind, cognitive science, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence, with particular interests in computational theories of mind, computational modeling, and the relationship between different explanatory and modeling strategies in the mind sciences. She also investigates philosophical questions raised by contemporary AI, including the nature of opacity in computational models and its implications for explanation in cognitive science. Alongside this work, she is a historian of cognitive science and AI, examining how the development of computer technology has shaped our conceptions and models of the mind and brain. Abstract: Scientists rely on various types of models to make sense of their phenomena of interest. This has led philosophers to take up a range of semantic, ontological, and epistemological questions about how models represent, what kinds of things models are, what we learn from models, and how they explain. One type of model that has been of particular interest to philosophers is the computational model. Computational models are commonplace in the mind sciences in general and neuroscience in particular, with many asking how computational modeling can help us understand the nervous system and its contribution to cognition and behavior. These questions are particularly pressing in neuroscience, as computational models have become a dominant framework for making sense of cognition. Thus, old questions about model-based science have re-emerged within the context of neuroscience, with many philosophers looking to established frameworks to understand how computational models represent, explain, and contribute to theory development in neuroscience. These established frameworks, however, characterize computational models as a homogeneous type which cannot capture actual modeling practices in neuroscience. In this talk, I argue that computational models in neuroscience are best typed as a kind of liminal model, a type I introduce to capture how the status of a computational model is determined by the epistemic context in which it is deployed. Indeed, the category to which a computational model belongs shifts according to the role it plays within a given context. ASL-English interpreters have been requested. Light refreshments will be provided.
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Your Business Probably Has More Data Than Insight by Nathan Tayloe
Most businesses know more about themselves than they ever have. Leaders have access to financial reports, sales pipelines, customer data, employee metrics, website analytics, and dashboards for almost every part of the organization. CRMs track every stage of the sales process. Marketing platforms report results in real time. AI can analyze and summarize enormous amounts of information in seconds. Yet I've sat in plenty of meetings where all of that information is available, and some of the most important questions are still surprisingly difficult to answer. What's actually working? Why are customers choosing us? Where are we losing opportunities? What should we do differently? Having the data and understanding what it means are two very different things. More Information Doesn't Always Create More Clarity Over the past decade, businesses have invested heavily in visibility, and that's a good thing. We can understand performance with a level of detail that would have been unimaginable not long ago. But there's an unintended consequence. The easier something becomes to measure, the easier it is to assume it must be important. Website traffic goes up, so that looks positive. Leads increase, so marketing appears to be working. Sales activity climbs, so the pipeline looks healthy. Maybe. The numbers tell us what happened. Understanding why it happened, whether it matters, and what we should do next still requires judgment. Not Everything That Matters Fits on a Dashboard Consider a customer who ultimately contacts your company through Google. The data may attribute that lead to search. What it may not show is that the customer heard about you from a colleague six months earlier, saw your company mentioned in an industry publication, followed one of your employees on LinkedIn, and read several reviews before finally searching for your company. Google may have produced the click. It didn't necessarily create the decision. This happens throughout a business. Some of the things that matter most are difficult to reduce to a single metric: Why your best customers stay Why talented employees choose your company Why a prospect trusts one provider over another Why one service is gaining momentum while another isn't Why the market perceives your business the way it does Data can help answer those questions, but it needs context. Better Decisions Start With Better Questions One of the easiest traps for leaders is starting with the information in front of them rather than the decision they're trying to make. Instead of opening a dashboard and asking, "What does the data show?" it can be more useful to start with a different set of questions: What are we trying to understand? What decision are we trying to make? What would we need to know to make that decision confidently? That changes the role of data. Instead of looking at every number available and searching for meaning, you're using information to understand something specific about the business. Information Still Requires Judgment More sophisticated analytics and AI will continue to give leaders access to better information, faster. That's valuable, but I don't think it reduces the importance of experience and judgment. If anything, it increases it. Someone still has to decide which numbers deserve attention, which patterns matter, what context might be missing, and when the data isn't telling the whole story. The goal isn't to know more about your business simply because you can. It's to understand your business well enough to make better decisions. Good data can tell you what happened. Good leadership has to decide what it means. — Learn more about how we help organizations turn business, customer, and marketing insights into smarter strategies at tayloegray.com, or reach out directly at nathan@tayloegray.com.
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Ubisoft plans cuts at German studios, adding to wave of workforce reductions
Ubisoft is planning to reduce its workforce in Germany, where it operates a trio of studios, by about 100 workers, Game File has learned. The company wants to offer employees buyouts to, should enough people accept, avoid having to lay anyone off. “In Germany, we initiated discussions with the Works Council last week regarding a proposed voluntary departure plan across Ubisoft Dusseldorf, Ubisoft Berlin & Ubisoft Mainz,” a company rep told Game File. A “works council” is a union-like group representing employees. “The voluntary plan is the primary measure being proposed to support the intended organizational changes,” the Ubisoft rep added. The company declined to confirm the scale of the potential headcount cut. Of the impacted studios, Mainz might be the best known to the public. It leads development of the Anno series and shipped the well-reviewed strategy game Anno 117: Pax Romana in November 2025. Berlin and Dusseldorf operate as support studios within Ubisoft’s creative network. Berlin recently supported the development of Rainbow Six Siege and the Rayman Legends Retold remake. Dusseldorf also contributed to those projects, as well as The Settlers and Ubisoft-branded escape rooms. Dusseldorf is the biggest of the three studios, with some 400+ workers, compared to just over 100 at the other two, a source familiar with the reductions and the teams told Game File. More than half of these new reductions of about 100 people are expected to happen at Dusseldorf. The planned cuts were announced at a town hall for the German studios on Tuesday of last week. In an email follow-up, the studio group’s managing director, Benedikt Grindel, said the cuts were intended to “best position our German studios for the future... with a clearer focus on their role, capabilities and organizational setup needed for the work ahead.” The email was an echo of the past. In January 2025, Grindel had emailed the Ubisoft developers in his region (or studio “zone”) to explain that a round of 185 cuts at the time, including about 65 at Dusseldorf, were “essential to improve our operational efficiency and ensure the long-term sustainability of our studios, the zone and the company.” A half-decade of continued job cuts Ubisoft has been aggressively cutting its headcount for years. At the end of September 2022, it had 20,729 workers. By the end of March 2026, that total was down to 16,590. Studio management is trying to trim costs as it grapples with a changing industry and a drought of releases, let alone hits. The company announced earlier this year that it had reduced its costs since 2022 by “nearly €325 million” ($362m) and planned to lower them through 2028 by another €180 million ($200m). In June the company said it was closing down its Winnipeg and Belgrade studios and cutting roles in its Barcelona team. Even commercial and creative success hasn’t spared studios from this ongoing company-wide contraction. As Game File was nailing down details around the proposed cuts in Germany, Ubisoft management was informing workers of cuts in its Singapore studio, which shipped a hit remake of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag this past July. Some 70 positions in Singapore are being eliminated “to align the studio with upcoming production needs,” per a company rep’s statement to Game File. In early 2024, a large team in the Singapore studio launched the multiplayer pirate game Skull & Bones. It performed poorly but has been supported with regular content updates since. Many of Ubisoft’s studios around the world are heavily subsidized via regional grants and tax breaks. Singapore had been among them for years, but received no such local assistance in the 12 months ending this past March. News of the Singapore cuts broke today alongside word that Ubisoft is also proposing the closure of RedLynx, pending negotiations with officials. The Finnish studio behind the motorbike series Trials was founded in 2000 and sold to Ubisoft in 2011. As reported by VGC (and corroborated by Game File), Ubisoft management told employees it could not come up with a new, sustainable assignment for RedLynx. The 2025 workforce at Ubisoft Dusseldorf were straight-up cuts. This time, Ubisoft is hoping the reductions at its trio of German studios will largely come from workers taking a payout to leave. The company offered such voluntary dismissals at its Massive Entertainment studio (The Division) a year ago. For the German studios’ buyouts this time around, Ubisoft and the Works Council had discussed a formula that’d pay a worker’s monthly salary multiplied by 1.5 and by the number of years they’ve worked at the company, according to Game File sources. The formula is still subject to negotiations with the Works Council and has not yet been part of an official offer to workers. It could be adjusted up or down, and it could be supplemented with additional bonuses. Asked about the floated payout formula, a Ubisoft rep told Game File, “The terms of a potential voluntary departure program remain subject to negotiation with employee representatives. No final agreement has been reached, and we won’t comment on specific proposals while discussions are ongoing.” Game File is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe Item 2: Epic’s AI adventures Epic Games (Fortnite, the Unreal engine) is all-in on using AI to try to transform the way it makes video games and game-making tools. It’s leaders appear to be undeterred by any resistance among gamers and some game developers around generative AI—and instead emboldened by advances, particularly in AI-assisted programming. A recap of the last three days: On Monday, Bloomberg reported that Epic management told workers last week that development of an upcoming game combining Star Wars and Marvel characters would be “AI first.” Employees would be expected to use AI models such as Claude to code the game. A manager told Epic’s developers there would be “[n]o more hand-written code” and that art for the game would be “generated with full AI workflows,” per the outlet. Just ahead of that story running, Epic founder Tim Sweeney tweeted: “We have a huge pivot underway here at Epic, moving developers around to retool for maximum AI acceleration. The aim isn’t to do the same stuff with fewer people, but to enable everyone here to build MORE and BETTER stuff, and to bring the benefits to all teams using Unreal.” In a follow-up, Sweeney predicted that most game development processes would be at least three times faster a year from now than they were in January 2026, thanks to AI. To a person on X who told him he was failing to read the room, Sweeney said: “Much of the room wants it to be 2016 again, but it’s not. Our job, as the provider of tools and technology to much of the industry, is to design for the present that is and the future that will soon be.” On Wednesday, Epic announced it was releasing a faster launcher for its Epic Games Store marketplace. It did so by stating in a blog post as clear as could be that the launcher is an AI-enabled, vibe-coded project: Programming is hard. So, instead of doing that, we vibe coded a new Epic Games Launcher that’s way faster and more responsive than the current one, and has a new look. Programming is hard? That was unexpected phrasing from a company founded by a legendarily great programmer. Back in 2011, Sweeney told me that he’d picked up programming quickly as a kid and rejoiced at the power it gave him. “I could look at any program that anybody else had written and, with enough effort, build something cooler.” Item 3: The Xbox Labs experiment (and one of the people behind it) Microsoft’s Xbox division, which is flooding the zone with announcements lately, yesterday revealed a new internal tech-tinkering team called Xbox Labs. In the words of Xbox boss Asha Sharma Labs is “a small group of game makers, engineers and scientists whose job is to turn emerging ideas into things our players and developers can experience.” Conventional wisdom coming out of the announcement is that Labs is a team that’ll focus on ideas driven by generative AI. In her announcement, Sharma cited some of the dizzying achievements in tech and gaming over the past month as AI agents and other AI tools have been deployed to swiftly figure out how popular games work, then rebuild them and mix them up. She mentioned seeing ”games rapidly decompiled and rebuilt to run on hardware they were never originally designed to support” and said “[p]erhaps more surprisingly, we’ve seen many of the biggest games in the world have been remixed into the source code of another.” (Minecraft plus Elden Ring, for example, or Fortnite + Super Monkey Ball + Overwatch + Diablo + others.) Sharma also cited the work of Windows PC games being ported to run in browsers, a seeming reference to a recent AI-assisted fan port of Halo. Or perhaps Call of Duty or GTA. Sharma didn’t use the specific term “AI” in her memo, but she came close, citing AI “agents” and their potential for game-making tools that Labs could help craft: I think XBOX has an important role to play here. Coding became the first major workload for agents because they can write, run, and test software. Games share many of those same properties, and people spend more than 72 billion hours a year playing XBOX games, roughly five times the estimated time spent writing code worldwide. We’ve spent 25 years learning how to make great games, and I want our game makers to help shape what these new technologies make possible. As we learn, we’ll share the tools we build with developers across the industry, just as we always have. When I asked an Xbox rep if Labs was an AI-centric team, they said genAI was not the focus, describing it as having a broader mandate for using new tech in new ways in gaming. As an example, they pointed to Xbox’s recently launched disc-to-digital gaming usage rights program. Microsoft didn’t specifically name anyone involved full-time in Xbox Labs yesterday, but on social media and LinkedIn, I spotted Adrian Mato IDing himself as leading the creatio of tools at Labs and talking up the launch. Mato first caught my attention in late September, when he said on X that he was “starting to build a new team at Xbox focused on products and tools for how games get built and distributed as agentic tools become more capable.” At the time, he framed AI-based tools as a supplement to traditional game dev tools. “I don’t think we need to replace them,” he said. Since then, he’s publicly shown interest in AI and in games. He’s recently spent some of his X feed marveling at the power of AI agents and praising the lighting in the latest Gears of War. Following the Labs announcement yesterday, he enthused about the Xbox Labs’ stylish landing page. He wrote: “We built some fun tools to art-direct shaders in real time, experimented with interactive ASCII art, and sprinkled in lots of tiny details. “Move your mouse to leave a colorful trail that reveals the original footage, or interact with the video to trigger bursts of particles. “A lot of love went into making it all feel just right. “More to come”
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